Bronze Baseball From Statue at Special Needs Field Gone, Maybe Forever

A bronze baseball from the statue at Challengers Field may have been thrown in the trash by an unwitting concessions worker, police said.

A 46-year-old woman discovered the baseball was missing when she took her son to the Tinley Park field to take pictures May 15, police said.

The ball is part of a bronze sculpture. It rests in a baseball mitt held in the lap of a little girl in a wheelchair.

Special needs youths and adults play baseball Challengers Field, which is wheelchair accessible and has a rubberized surface.

After the mother noticed the baseball was no longer attached to the statue, she “went to the concession stand and talked to the lady working there and she said someone turned in a piece of material matching the description of the missing bronze baseball but they threw it away because they did not know what it was,” police said.

The Tinley Park police alerted the park district.

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